Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Can ganking ever be justified?
chryses
Member UncommonPosts: 1,453
Have to ask the question because an ex guild member contacted me and explained he wanted to set up a hardcore PvP guild with hard core RP. Hardcore PvP I have no problem with, but he continued to explain that they will most likely go out killing people randomly. Personally I hate ganking and killing for killing sake as I always need a reason.
So what does everone think? Can ganking be justified if heavy RP is mixed in?
Comments
Sorry the survey is supposed to say,
"Can Ganking be justified with heavy RP?"
Sure it can. Me and a buddy used to go gank newbies all the time in an effort to piss someone off enough that they would rally other high levels to come fight us, simply because BG's/Arenas were boring and we wanted world PvP, and this was the most realistic way.
EDIT: Just realized you said with RP, which I don't know because I don't RP.
Tried: LotR, CoH, AoC, WAR, Jumpgate Classic
Played: SWG, Guild Wars, WoW
Playing: Eve Online, Counter-strike
Loved: Star Wars Galaxies
Waiting for: Earthrise, Guild Wars 2, anything sandbox.
which game are you playing in, death penalty is important here.
<Welcome to my world>
It's a dangerous world out there...
you better be prepared for it.
their are cut throats and highway men...
Don't come whining to me if you weren't cautious enough to avoid them.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Guys! I'm hopelessly lost in a mountain of mole hills! Them damn moles!
Like the OP, I don't care to gank w/o a decent reason, like a guild enemy or a reasonably fair fight. One sided slaughters don't appeal to me, however it for some folks this is their preferred mode of play.
As long as gankers aren't rewarded for this behavior I see no big deal.
I'm currently playing ROM, and if a player more than 10 levels (?) above me ganks me, then none of my items drop.
But anything closer, and its fair game, and I have no issue with it.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
In any open pvp environment ganking is always justified.
In any open pvp environment ganking is always justified.
I actually agree with this, if the game is ffa the newbies should know what they're getting themselves into.
I disagree and agree at the same time I think that if you are ganking people that are the same level as you and you are role playing it is acceptable but if you are ganking somone who is much lower then you it is not.
Justify ganking with RP? That's insanely easy, you really need to ask?
You like to murder, or are a band of brigands.
You hate the members of the other faction for whatever atrocities they committed in the past.
You're insane.
You're soldiers, they're the enemy, killing them is your job.
I'm guessing you're new to RP.
Even if they want to roleplay a villain, even villains have their motives for murder. Most villains only commit murder to achieve their goals and not randomly go out and commit senseless murder. But gankers simply gank for fun and the feeling of "power" it gives them that stimulates their brain's pleasure senses. They thinks their actions is "fine" just because it is an online game and it doesn't hurt anybody. They are not afraid of the consequences of their actions. Imagine an mmo in which you can only have 1 life and if your character dies, it is gone as you cannot resurrect and immediate gets deleted. People would argue then that this game won't be fun. But for those who plays it, they would be very careful with their actions because it has consequences. If they simply go out and randomly kill players, sooner or later someone is gonna come kill them and all their "hard work" on their character will be gone.
Conclusion: PK gankers/griefers are just like alchoholics drinking Non-Alchoholic beer.
Interesting arugement. I agree.
The time period of the game is important.
Say your playing in a medeival setting, back then all you had to do was look at some one wrong and you could lose your head.
Is it's a savage time in a kill or be killed world?
With that said there is a huge diffrence between, stealth killing some distracted newbie, and walking up to someone and saying "I don't like the way you look" and killing him. If you realy are going to Rpvp I think you need to let your victims know other wise it's just un fun for one side.
"One word, Thundercougarfalconbird."
If the rules state you can be attacked anywhere, be ready for it. Its that simple really. You cant go crying after it happens bcuz you werent ready for it.
This is even more justified under heavy RP. In RL youre not going to let the enemy finish what theyre doing, heal, buff, and then attack them. You're going to use the biggest advantage you can get.
Absolutely. It's a game and as long as you follow all the rule dictated by it, I see no problem harrassing a lowbie hours and hours on end.
Ganking means something different to everyone, so we'll just go with the most encompassing definition - fighting someone who has little to no chance of defending against the attack.
If that's the case, the next question is what MMO is it? If it's an MMO with territory control or an MMO where that weaker opponent has the ability to influence the tides of war, then you have plenty of reason in-character and out to kill them, so I say have at it.
In an MMO like WOW, or even UO, where player ability to affec tthe game world is low or non-existent, then I would say the big thing to keep in mind is what your victim will think once the attack is over. Here's some examples:
Ultima Online: I played an enviromentalist killer that slaughtered anyone that entered a certain area of the map. Two things that I tried to make very clear, in an incharacter manner on the boards and in talking to players ingame, were why I was doing it and that I was only looting what my character needed (arrows, bandages, leather armor). After each kill, I told the ghost to resurrect, get their things and get out of my forest. I also hunted on Tuesday mornings and Thursday afternoons.
Asheron's Call: There used to be a player on the PvP server named Halloween-DT. If she spotted you and you were low level, she often times would emote a howl or something to give you fair warning. The howl itself was enough to get the adrenaline rushing, and you were at least given a chance - albeit a very small one
- to try to run like hell and save your own ass.
In games like PotBS and EVE, pirates will sometimes ask for a 'toll' or 'ransom'.
If your goal is to RP, which usually is also a goal to amuse yourself and the others around you, and you've got a situation where you undeniably have the upperhand, it's the perfect opportunity to add a bit of depth to that roleplay. It goes a long way toward gaining a positive rep for your actions instead of being considered 'gankers hiding behind rp'.
I'd say try it. Have fun with it. If you're lucky, players will mobilize against you, do patrols, and incorporate your nasty band of evildoers into their regular gameplay as a welcomed adversary instead of griefers.
- RPG Quiz - can you get all 25 right?
- FPS Quiz - how well do you know your shooters?
Ganking is cool if it's against same levels or maybe higher ones, but marching round what is more often or not a starting zone and slaughtering newbies is a. Cowardly b. Boring and c. Pointless. Anyone who feels there is justification in hyperthetically ruining a new players game experience, purely for the sake of it should cast their minds way way back to when they started the game and consider whether they would apreciate such mean spirited behaviour levied at themselves.
Ganking is supposed to be unfair. The way I look at it I been ganked plenty of times I dont care who it was, Im goin to get my revenge even if its not the person who ganked me, Ill take it out on someone from the same race or faction even if its lower levels. Plus I think it can be pretty fun pissing someone off to the point they log off, while Im laughing as I scamper off to find another victim. IF ITS RED ITS DEAD!!!
Southparks "Make LOVE not WARCRAFT" best sums up GANKING. All a GANKER is a NO Lifer who has nothing better to do then RUIN the game with thier CHILD like antics to try to prove to themself that they may of been bullied in RL but NO one is going to BULLIE them in a VIRTUAL world.
I've played plenty of open-pvp MMOs, and I have never been into the ganking scene.
I don't think I've ever once randomly attacked newbies unless I was raiding a village and they were in my way or a member of the opposite faction was taking my spawns or annoying me in some way. I've NEVER gone out 'just to kill'. I'm actually usually the high-levelled guy that hides around in newbie areas of my own faction and ganks gankers.
I'm not a carebear, and I'm not friendly to opposing factions. I will kill at the drop of the dime if I have a reason, but I just feel like too much of a dick killing newbies that are trying to level up or complete a quest and are keeping to themselves.
That's for lower-levelled characters, though. A friend and I used to randomly gank higher-level characters when we played Vanilla WoW back in the day. We were both Gnomish Engineers with Death Rays, and we would pop out of sneak (both Rogues) and zap some level 50-60 simultaneously. They were always one hit kills if they weren't Warriors. I wish I could've seen the anger of a level 50-60, epicced Warlock getting blown to smitherines in seconds by two level 27 Rogues.
Ganking is supposed to be unfair. The way I look at it I been ganked plenty of times I dont care who it was, Im goin to get my revenge even if its not the person who ganked me, Ill take it out on someone from the same race or faction even if its lower levels. Plus I think it can be pretty fun pissing someone off to the point they log off, while Im laughing as I scamper off to find another victim. IF ITS RED ITS DEAD!!!
haha that's the thing, people who are ganked take it to seriously. When they get higher levels they'd probably end up doing the same thing. I'm not for or against ganking, If someone wants to gank whatever you have to learn to accept it in ffa pvp games.
I don't know about you but it was fun as hell for me. I used to be in a hardcord pvp guild that is nortorious for killing anyone and anything we come across. So every where you go and anything you do, chances are there someone somewhere waiting to take a shot at you. Instead of it being frustrating, if gives you a sense of danger and unpredicability and make the game a whole lot more fun for me. Now I understand that I prefrence to playing the game might be unique and even asshattery, but it is after all a game and people just do what ever they want to do as long as it is legal. Any rule you make outside of what originally stated on the game or server is just your own personal prefrence and forcing it on other is no worse than that guy who run around slaughtering lowebies endlessly.
The more a d&%^$ck a person is in-game the less of a life he has out of it. This is not a stereotype. Its the truth. I don't hate the gankers. I pity their poor pathetic lives that motivate them to take it out on others in an environment that gives them the power they don't possess in themselves.
I have ganked for revenge, but only against those that started it=) I trully feel bad taking advantage of someone in a videgame the same way I'd feel bad about doing it while walking through the supermarket or mall. Obviously, plenty of people don't feel bad about hurting others. Those who can't do it in real life, do in a videogame.
The tougher they are in a MMO the weaker they are on the inside. Sometimes, it goes both ways though. Some gankers are just as obnoxious in real life as if thats hard to beleive. Never met an a-hole in game thats actually a nice person.
So someone say buys WoW (as it's the most obvious) spend x amount on the game, x amount on the expansions, spend hours and hours updateing it, not to mention subs. Once they get in game they start questing, an hour in some high level comes accross them and ganks them for an hour or so camping their corpse. Why on earth would that person want to play on?. My point is that it is a game, but a game that costs money to play and its a bit harsh and self involved to think that cuz you already played for ages you have the right to waste their time and money by ruining there game experience because you can. Just because the rules say its ok dont make it fair and just because you think its fair dont make it ok.
"ganking" is the reason that mmo's shouldnt have ridiculously high level caps
"ganking" is the reason skill should be more important than some abstract power level based on time played
That said, pkers make the world more alive, it's somewhat like having roaming elite mobs in areas, that will kill you dead if you don't avoid them. And if you use a bit of reverse psychology you can usually avoid the hot spots. (especially so in eve with the big red spots on the galaxy map
)
The key to avoiding "teh gank" is having viable escapes for people that really don't want to / can't fight, ie EVE with ecm, warp stabilisers and warping, if you don't want to get scrammed, you won't get scrammed. and even if you die it's really tough to lock a pod before it warps off.
I remember a time when I was levelling my first mage in wow when a paladin was trying to gank me, I just kept spamming sheep and blinking away til I reached a friendly town (pre diminishing returns), options like that serve to reduce frustration in the lower levels for sure.
Would be nice if they built a ransom system into the game with something to lose though. You pay, it disables their weapons against you (unless you lock them) until they leave the area.
I support pirates. I don't really approve of corpse camping in the lesser mmos with that ghost siliiness, but if it happens to me i've always been able to escape or just log an alt, after playing mmos for 6 years I can count the number of times "griefers" have spoiled my gameplay on one hand...
<Welcome to my world>
It is, and forever will be, supported by the erroneous, "Because we can, we should, and we will."
A dyslexic man walked into a bra.